down the steps to the outside. Her compliments had again pleased him, although he wasn’t quite sure why they had. He’d never been one to place a lot of emphasis on what anyone thought of what he owned. He bought to satisfy his taste and not anyone else’s.
“You said your sister moved to Montana. Does she come back to visit often?”
He glanced over at Alyssa as they walked down the stairs. She seemed to have gotten shorter and a quick look at her feet told him why. She had exchanged her three-inch high-heel shoes for a pair of flats. Smart move. A working ranch was no place for high heels. “Casey’s been back once since she left and that was to get her wedding dress made. Mrs. Miller, a seamstress in town, always said she wanted to be the one who designed Casey’s wedding dress if she ever got married,” he said.
Her question quickly reminded him of something. “But she and McKinnon might be visiting within the next couple of weeks. Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I was just wondering.” And then she asked, “What about Cole?”
He glanced over at her again. “What about him?”
“Does he live here, too?”
“No, Cole has a place in town but most of the time he’s on assignment somewhere.” Clint had an idea why Alyssa asked about Casey and Cole and the chances that they would be paying a visit to the ranch anytime soon. “If you’re concerned what my siblings will have to say about our situation if they happen to pop in then don’t be. They won’t ask questions.”
At the uncertainty in her eyes, he went on to say, “And no, it’s not because I usually let women stay over on occasion. It’s just that my family respects my privacy. Besides, it’s not like either of us has done anything wrong.”
“So you plan to tell them the truth about who I am?”
“The part about you being my wife?”
“Yes.”
He met her gaze. “I see no reason not to. Besides, Chester knows and if he knows then they know, or they will soon. He thinks I need a wife.”
“Why does he think that?”
“He’s afraid that like Uncle Sid, I’ll get so involved with my horses that I won’t take time out to build a personal life or have a family. He’s determined not to let that happen. He would marry me off in a heartbeat if he could.”
They said nothing for the next few moments, but as they continued to walk together around the ranch he was fully aware of the admiring glances Alyssa was getting from the men who worked for him. His mouth thinned; for some reason he was bothered by it.
“This is a huge place,” she said, as if wanting to change the subject, which was okay with him.
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you have a lot of men working for you?”
“Well over a hundred. And as I said earlier, Alyssa, if you decide to stay here, the chances of getting in each other’s way are slim to none.” As far as he was concerned life would be much easier, less complicated that way. The last thing he needed was for her or any woman to get under his skin.
“Ready to head back?” he asked and watched how she pushed a wayward curl back away from her face.
“Yes...and thanks for the tour.”
As they walked back toward the ranch house—strolling quietly side by side—he wished like hell he could dismiss from his mind the memory of her taste that remained on his tongue, and how even now, the memory of his lips locked to hers was uncoiling sensations that were running rampant throughout his body. His loins were on fire just thinking about it. His body, in its own way, was sending a reminder of just how long it had been since he’d slept with a woman. It had been way too long and today he was feeling it right down to the bone.
That wasn’t good. He had told her that she wouldn’t become an itch that he would be tempted to scratch and he hoped like hell that he didn’t live to regret those words. He had to remain calm, in control and more than anything he had to remember that no matter how much desire was eating away at his senses, the last thing he needed in his life was a wife.
Chapter 5
“I tell you, Alyssa, that girl is up to no good.”
Alyssa tugged off her earring and switched her cell phone to the other ear. Claudine often said that about Kim, but in this case she was inclined to believe her great-aunt. She hadn’t heard from Kim in months, at least not since her cousin’s last attempt to sabotage one of the projects she’d been working on for a client.
It had cost Alyssa two weeks of production time and she had had to work every hour nonstop to meet the deadline date she’d been given. Of course, as usual, Kim had denied everything and there hadn’t been any way Alyssa could prove her guilt.
“You’re probably right, Aunt Claudine, but there’s nothing that I can do. You know Kim, she’s full of surprises.” Usually those surprises cost Alyssa tremendously. Kim’s bag of dirty tricks included everything from sabotaging important projects to sleeping with Alyssa’s fiancé and then having a courier deliver the damaging photographs just moments before she was to leave her home for the church.
Her troubles with Kim started when Alyssa had arrived in the Barkleys’ household to live with her grandfather and great-aunt. Her mother had never given Alyssa a reason for sending her away, but to this day Alyssa believed that Kate Harris had begun to notice her most recent lover’s interest in her thirteen-year-old-daughter’s developing body.
As Alyssa was growing up, her mother had never told her the identity of her father. In fact, Alyssa was very surprised to learn that she had a paternal grandfather. Right before her mother had put her on the plane for Waco, she had told Alyssa that she was the illegitimate daughter of Isaac Barkley’s dead son, Todd. Todd had been killed in the line of duty as a Texas Ranger.
Alyssa had arrived in Waco feeling deserted and alone, but it didn’t take long to see that the arrival of Grandpa Isaac and Aunt Claudine in her life was a blessing of the richest kind. They immediately made her feel wanted, loved and protected.
Unfortunately, her new relatives’ acts of kindness didn’t sit too well with her cousin Kim, who was the same age as Alyssa. Kim was the daughter of Grandpa Isaac’s only other son, Jessie. Jessie’s wife had died when Kim was six. From what Alyssa had been told, Jessie had felt guilty about driving his wife to commit suicide because of his unfaithful ways and had spoiled Kim rotten to ease his guilt. Kim was used to getting all the attention and hadn’t liked it one bit when that attention shifted with Alyssa’s arrival.
Alyssa couldn’t remember a single time Kim had not been a thorn in her side. First, there had been all those devious pranks Kim had played so that Alyssa could get blamed. Fortunately, Grandpa Isaac had known what Kim was doing and had come to her defense. But instead of things getting better, the more Grandpa Isaac stood up for her, the worse Kim got.
Alyssa’s teen years had been the hardest and if it hadn’t been for her grandfather and great-aunt she doubted she would have gotten through them. And it didn’t help matters that her mother never came to visit her, never bothered contacting her at all. Kim liked to claim that Alyssa was living off the Barkleys’ charity and that there were some in
